The aim of this practice-based research project is to examine how specular highlights and proximal spaces, when perceived through the Lacanian gaze, might confound our perception of Cartesian perspectivalism in representational painting. I will analyse and question such a combination of specific visual characteristics identified within three of my paintings and related theories of looking. Specifically, these include Hal Foster’s (1996: 138) reading of the ways in which the Lacanian ‘gaze’ disrupts Cartesian perspectivalism, Norman Bryson’s (1990: 71, 79) writing on the reversal of the ‘Albertian gaze’ and Arthur Faisman and Michael S. Langer’s (2013: 1) definition of ‘specular highlights’. By analysing and mapping theoretical concerns that come from close readings of three of my paintings I will investigate whether or not our perception of Cartesian perspectivalism can be somewhat confounded by these specific visual characteristics. I will also discuss how overloading the viewer with an excessive use of specular highlights could disrupt any underlying narratives within the paintings. This will be done by subsequently re-examining these theoretical concerns back through my painting practice, forming what Dean and Smith (2009: 19) have termed an ‘Iterative Cyclic Web’. My hypothesis is that these three paintings may be nexus for a particular oscillation between different ways of looking contained within the paintings I will discuss: looking through the surface, looking across the surface and a form of being looked at from inside the surface. This thesis will be underpinned by two interconnected elements. Firstly, there will be an exhibition of selected paintings I have made, together with painting experiments and supporting material. Secondly, chapters in this text will outline the theoretical analysis of my painting practice and the subsequent studio-based analysis of questions derived from the theoretical analysis. This thesis as a whole will closely follow a practice-based research methodology drawn from Katie MacLeod’s (2000: online) writing on ‘revealing a practice’. I will move back and forth between practice and writing as a method for analysing and developing a multifaceted response to my research question.

Can nuances of surface – by drawing the viewer close – offer contemplative experience, and enable art-making methods to be better understood? I investigate Agnes Martin’s methods, which are available to those looking carefully at her paintings, focusing on the late 1950s and early 60s. Her constructions of materials found near her New York studio have received little critical attention in existing writing, despite their pivotal role in the development of her grid paintings. I re-enacted some of her methods, and adopted some of the elements that I observed in her artworks from this period, in order to better understand the relationship between found objects in these works and the marks and lines within later paintings and drawings. I focused on the particular quality of attention Martin devoted to marks, materials and surfaces, both in her work and in her working environment; this involved analysing and attempting to follow her ‘contemplative’ approach (see Chapter 2). A practical analysis extended the understanding of Martin’s methods and the effects of local North American influences, and resulted in a new body of layered and two-sided artworks, described throughout this thesis. This investigation of her meditative methods and how the field of painting can include objects and sculpture relates for the first-time Martin’s attitude toward making with some artists who are working today (see Chapters 7 and 8). It also adds to existing scholarship on Martin by comparing her surfaces’ demand for closeness (see Chapter 9) with the participatory practices of Lygia Clark and Gego in South America (see Chapter 10). Mondrian’s influence is thereby traced in separate but parallel lines of abstraction. This thesis’ main contribution is a new workshop methodology (see Chapter 12) as a guide for those who wish to research an artist and their methods. The methodology offers a discursive structure within which to investigate art practice through new practice. The presentation of new artworks in participatory workshops in an exhibition setting invites discussion about art-making methods, emphasising the role of practice in the artistic research process. New artworks were offered to be hand-held by the viewer, and this invitation to attend closely was accompanied by art-making and dialogue around practice. The responses I gathered from participants indicate that this type of active engagement can disseminate tacit knowledge and offer experience of a contemplative approach.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Delaware, 1982. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-203).

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-70).